‘I want it on the record that I’m not happy with this, no matter what the AG says,’ Jarvis grumbled as he led Vance through the high baffle gate that led to the outside world. He pushed open the door and Vance followed him on to a paved area flanked by a roadway. A tired-looking Skoda saloon sat by the kerb, its diesel engine rumbling. Vance smelled the dirty exhaust, a cloying note in the fresh morning air. It was a combination he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Jarvis pulled open the passenger door and leaned in. ‘You take him to Evesham Fabrications, right? Nowhere else. I don’t care if he says he’s having a bloody heart attack and needs to go to the hospital, or he’s going to shit himself if he doesn’t get to a toilet pronto. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. Evesham Fabrications.’
The driver looked baffled. ‘You need to chill, mate,’ he said. ‘You’ll give yourself a stroke. I know my job.’ He craned his head so he could see past Jarvis. ‘In you get, mate.’
‘In the front, so the driver can keep an eye on you.’ Jarvis stepped back, allowing Vance to slide into the passenger seat. He reached for the seat belt with his prosthesis, hoping any clumsiness would be put down to the length of time since he’d last been in a car. ‘I don’t want to hear you’ve caused any trouble, Collins,’ Jarvis said, slamming the door shut. The car smelled of synthetic pine air freshener overlaid with coffee.
The cabbie, a shambolic-looking Asian man in his mid-thirties, chuckled as he pulled away. ‘He’s in a good mood.’
‘It’s not a mood, it’s his permanent state,’ Vance said. His heart was racing. He could feel sweat in the small of his back. He couldn’t quite believe it. He’d made it out of the front door. And with every passing minute, he was further from HMP Oakworth and closer to his dream of freedom. OK, there were still plenty of obstacles between him and that steak dinner, but the hardest part was behind him. He reminded himself that he’d always believed he led a charmed life. The years in jail had just been an interruption of his natural state, not a termination. The dice were rolling in his favour again.
If he needed reinforcement in that conviction, it came as Vance took a closer look at his surroundings. The car was an automatic, which would make his life a lot easier. He hadn’t driven since his arrest; getting behind the wheel would be a steep enough revision curve without having to deal with gear changes. Vance relaxed a fraction, smiling as he took in neat fields of spring grass with their tightly woven hedges. Fat sheep grazed, their stolid lambs mostly past the gambolling stage. They passed orchards, rows of stumpy trees covered in blossom that was beginning to look a little bedraggled. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass. It was a foreigner’s ideal of the English countryside.
‘Must make a nice change for you, getting out like this,’ the cabbie said.
‘You’ve got no idea,’ Vance said. ‘I’m hoping this is just the start. Rehab, that’s what this has been for me. I’m a changed man.’ Changed, in the sense that he was determined never to repeat the kind of mistakes that got him confined. But he was still a killer; he’d just learned how to be a better one.
Now, he was studying the landscape, matching their route to the map in his head. Seven and a half miles of quiet country roads before they hit the major artery leading towards Birmingham.
Vance had pinpointed three places where he could stage the next part of his plan. It all depended on traffic. He didn’t want any witnesses, not at a stage in his escape when he had no weapon to defend himself. So far, one van had passed them, going in the opposite direction, but there was nothing in sight ahead of them as they climbed a long steep incline. He shifted in his seat so he could catch a glimpse in the rear-view mirror, making it look as if he was taking in the view. ‘Bloody lovely round here,’ he said. ‘You forget, inside.’ Then he jumped, genuinely startled. ‘What the hell is that?’ he demanded.
The cabbie laughed. ‘How long have you been away? It’s a wind farm. Giant windmills. They catch the wind and make electricity. Plenty wind up here, so there’s plenty windmills too.’
‘Jesus,’ Vance said. ‘They’re bloody enormous.’ And, fortuitously, their conversation had made the driver less attentive. The moment was perfect. They were approaching a T-junction, the first of Vance’s possible attack points. The car drifted to a halt, the driver pausing to point out more windmills on the horizon before checking for oncoming traffic.
In a split second, Vance smashed the forearm of his prosthesis into the side of the cabbie’s head. The man yelped and threw his hands up to protect himself. But Vance was remorseless and his artificial arm was a weapon far more solid than the bone and muscle of a human limb. He brought it down again on the man’s head, then swiped it hard against his face, smiling as the blood gushed from his nose. Vance used his other hand to release his seat belt so he could gain more leverage. He moved forward and cracked him across the head again, so hard he bounced off the window. The man was screaming now, hands clawing at Vance.
‘Fuck this,’ Vance hissed. He got his arm behind the driver’s head and rammed him face first into the steering wheel. After the third sickening crunch, the man finally went limp. Vance unfastened the driver’s belt and freed him from its constraint. Still pumped with adrenaline, he jumped out of the car and hustled round to the driver’s side. When he opened the door, the driver slumped towards the road. Vance squatted down and got one shoulder under his torso. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to his feet. All those hours in the gym had been worth it. He’d made sure to build strength and endurance rather than exaggerated muscle; he’d never seen any point in being obvious.
Vance staggered as far as the hedgerow that bordered the road. Breathing heavily, feeling his heart hammer in his chest, he dumped the driver on to the top bar of a metal field gate, then tipped him over on the far side. He grinned at the startled expressions on the faces of the nearest sheep as the cabbie tumbled to the ground, arms and legs flailing weakly.
He leaned against the gate for a moment, catching his breath, letting himself recover from the overdose of fight-orflight hormones. Then he returned to the car, this time to the driver’s seat. He cancelled the right turn on the indicator, slipped the car into drive then turned left, the opposite direction to Evesham Fabrications. He reckoned it would take him about forty minutes to make it to the service area on the motorway and the next stage of the plan.
He couldn’t help wondering how long it would take before someone noticed Jason Collins was still on the Therapeutic Community Wing. And Jacko Vance wasn’t. Before they understood that one of the most notorious and prolific serial killers the UK had ever produced was on the loose. And keen to make up for lost time.
This time, his grin lasted a lot longer than a few minutes.
9
Paula shuffled her papers and stifled a yawn. ‘I’m ready when you are,’ she said, moving closer to the whiteboards that lined one wall of the cluttered squad room. Carol wondered whether she’d managed any sleep at all. Paula would have had to hang around at the crime scene to make sure everything was being done according to the Major Incident Team’s protocols. Then she’d have had to go back to Northern HQ with their detectives and set up the programme of actions for the morning shift to carry out, again according to Carol’s specifications. And now she was charged with delivering the morning briefing to this close circle of colleagues who had learned each other’s ways with as much acuteness as they’d ever paid to a lover.
This was the squad Carol had hand-picked and built into the best unit she’d ever worked with. If James Blake hadn’t walked into the Chief Constable’s job with a personal mission to cut costs to the bone long before the idea occurred to the Prime Minister, she’d have been happy to stick with this bunch till she was ready to collect her pension. Instead, she was about to take another of her leaps into the unknown. Only this time, it felt like she was following instead of leading. Not the most reassuring prospect she’d ever faced.